Did You Know...

In 2010, when you say “Fat Man and Little Boy,” you could be referring to Michael Moore and George Stephanopoulos, but 65 years ago, devices sporting those seemingly innocuous names caused historically unmatched destruction, and abruptly ended a long war.

Tomorrow marks the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which was the beginning of the end for the Japanese empire.

Survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are welcoming a decision by the United States to send its first ever delegation to a ceremony marking the anniversary of the attacks, but are asking for something they aren’t likely to get — an apology.

Tokyo has praised the decision to send U.S. Ambassador John Roos to the Hiroshima anniversary on Friday, though some survivors of the attack, which is seen by many in Japan as an unjustified use of excessive force against a civilian population, say they have mixed feelings.

“They best thing they could do would be to apologize,” said Terumi Tanaka, who survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki at age 13 and is now secretary-general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Associations. “But I doubt that is going to happen.”

I wouldn’t be so sure, Mr. Tanaka. Apologizing for the US is what this administration does best. I must have missed the part where Japan apologized for bombing Pearl Harbor though — and if memory serves, that’s what started the whole thing in the first place.

The reason an apology may be forthcoming from this administration is that the ending of the US/Japan war violated the very tenet of philosophy embraced by many members of Team Obama: fairness.

The liberal/leftist is more inclined to look at the incendiary attacks on Dresden, carpet bombings on German and Japanese cities, and the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — millions of civilian casualties in all — and assume the United States was unfairly advantaged because Japan and Germany were unable to return the favor to Joe Sixpack in Boston, Los Angeles and Paducah (due to lack of enemy ability, not desire). They’ve seen “Failsafe” so much that the only acceptable final ending to the US/Japan war would have been for Henry Fonda to order American planes to nuke New York to level the playing field, figuratively and literally.

In President Obama’s Prague speech, he pledged to lead the charge in creating a nuclear-free world. This means that, even though Japan may never receive a formal apology, the world will get a dramatically weaker United States, thus ensuring that such an unfairly lopsided US victory never again occurs.